Monday, March 24, 2008

Giant waves damage reefs, global warming alarmists hardest hit

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Unusually large waves churned by an Atlantic storm system have littered the beaches of Barbados with broken coral in what could be a sign of damage to reefs across the region, a scientist said Sunday.

The amount of rubble on the island's west coast suggests the coral took a heavy pounding, said Leo Brewster, director of Barbados' Coastal Zone Management Unit, who was organizing dives later this week to survey the damage.

"We think it's going to be pretty extensive," Brewster said. "I think we're going to see it across the Caribbean."

The waves, reaching as high as an estimated 30 feet, lashed coastlines from Guyana to the Dominican Republic last week as a large low-pressure system idled off the northeastern United States.

No mention of global warming as a cause of the storm or the damage anywhere in the article.

An oversight, we assume – later versions surely will correct this.

UPDATE: Well, yes, there is this in the last paragraph in the story:

Reef-building coral provide a habitat for thousands of marine creatures but have been dying off across the Caribbean due to coastal pollution, overfishing and disease blamed on rising sea temperatures.

But where’s the speculation that this storm causing this damage was itself caused by Global Warming?

RELATED: A “Foul Weather Exhibit” opens in the state history museum in Kansas. But isn’t all foul weather caused by Global Warming Climate Change? Yet it is not mentioned in the article. Not having seen the exhibit, we don’t know if this oversight is limited to the article – or if the exhibit itself leaves out this bit of settled science -- and the exhibits website offers no hint at all. What's the matter with Kansas?